The prime consideration in recovery and deployment of water borne vehicles, both underwater and surface types, is to prevent damage to those vehicles, the recovery surface ship or personnel involved. Typical apparatus currently employed for this purpose include the of placing the vehicle in a sling while it is suspended from a ship mounted or floating crane. This procedure may subject the vehicle to damage from wave action forces generated by rough seas and from passage of the exposed vehicle through the interface between the ocean and the atmosphere. Damage may also result as the sling responds to rough seas causing the vehicle to be slammed against the structure of the recovery ship. Other systems include a single-point launch and recovery systems. Most of these type systems employ overboarding hoists or A-frames with a high strength line that lifts the underwater equipment to/from the water and the ship's deck. There are some basic problems related to this type system, namely, the ship generally must be stopped in the water, the ship's motion in the water differs from the motion of submerged equipment, there is dangerous swinging of the equipment taken from the water or entering the water. Some motion compensation systems and single-axis, anti-swing mechanisms have been developed to mitigate one or more of the above problems. Such devices are complex, heavy, expensive and do not always operate well specifically with long slender vehicles.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,979 by inventors Walton et al. teaches an apparatus for deploying and retrieving a seaborne vehicle having a frangible surface that includes a muzzle and a cylindrical shaped cocoon. The muzzle is clamped to the vehicle and then pulled by a rope into the cocoon. Bladders within the cocoon are inflated with pressurized air to grip the vehicle. The vehicle can then be safely retrieved by hoisting the cocoon out of the ocean. Vehicle deployment is achieved by placing the vehicle in the cocoon, pressurizing the bladders with air, lowering the cocoon and attendant vehicle into the ocean, exhausting the air from the bladders and towing the cocoon so that water passing apertures in the bow of the cocoon push the vehicle into the open ocean.
The conventional methods and the method in the above reference patent have their obvious disadvantages, namely, the conventional method and apparatus cannot be used when the water surface is not smooth and the patented apparatus and method is complex and costly to implement, must be configured to a specific vehicle and components must be stored when not in use.
There is a long standing need for apparatus and method for recovering and deploying water vehicles that prevents damage to the recovered or deployed vehicle and the attendant vehicle in rough water surface environments.